Online trading presents people with one of the easiest ways to participate in the global financial markets. Whether you are investing in Forex, Spread Betting, CFDs, or Binary Options, there are fewer requirements when compared to investing in the stock market. Not everyone who purports to be involved in online trading does so in good faith. There are those who mascaraed as service providers with the sole purpose of soliciting personal information for malicious use.

The ease of entry into the online trading community also attracts various perils associated with data security and financial loss. And while some top identity theft protection companies may provide services to cushion you from most of the risks that online traders face, some of the measures towards ensuring safety are pretty basic and every trader should try to embrace them.

Seasoned traders can easily detect some of these risks thus enabling them to avoid falling victims. But there are other traders who simply ignore them. These threats include falling prey of dangerous programs that steal information from your computer thereby leading to cases of identity theft and even financial losses. There are as increased cases of online accounts being targeted by hackers with the intention of stealing from traders.

Therefore in order to avoid falling victim of such people, it is important that you observe these simple online trading security measures. After all, you are in the market to make money, and at least not to make losses outside of the normal trading activity.

The first simple step is to ensure that every bit of personal information you submit online is encrypted. Encryption ensures that if you enter you payments information on a brokerage platform, the data is scrambled in such a way that hackers cannot easily track it. This is why you need to ensure that the web browser is protected with a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption. This can easily be identified by checking whether the leading characters of the browser section begin with a padlock and HTTPS://, or a padlock, the legal name of the company and HTTPS://. This certification ensures that the site is secured with SSL.

Another measure you can take is ensuring that in every platform that you submit personal information you use a unique password. Using a password that you have already used somewhere else increases exposure while sharing it would be simply a schoolboy error to make.

One other thing is controlling your engagement on social media. Some people tend to overshare personal information across social media platforms. Most forex traders tend to do more than trade. They try to make more money by sharing some of their trading tricks with others. As such, they end up launching their own services in which they advertise on several social media platforms. In making these ads, some tend to overshare their personal information, which makes them an easy target for hackers.

Email spam is also another way of targeting unsuspecting traders. Some online trading service providers tend to spread their trading tips and analysis via email. However, as noted earlier, not every service provider is genuine and or faithful to their traders. In order to avoid being targeted via email, it is important that you never click a link or pen an attachment directly from the mail reader section. It is advisable that you type the URL directly to the browser bar.

For those who prefer to trade via mobile devices, it is recommended that you use mobile data [3G/4G] instead of connecting via local wireless hotspot.

Another thing that traders should be looking for from their broker is a two-factor authentication log-in process. While this may not be a mandatory pre-requisite when choosing your broker, a two-factor authentication is safer and is already available on several broker platforms and online banking systems.

Conclusion

In summary, while anti-malware software and identity theft protection companies can protect you from some of the sophisticated attacks from hackers, they would do a better job if you took the initiative to avoid falling victim by taking these simple measures.

The FinTech industry may be revolutionizing the way we make payments but hackers are taking advantage of the industry by targeting unsuspecting traders who tend to share everything online. Brokers have as fund it tricky to protect their clients and even their own money and are employing some of the best security companies in the market.

Therefore, as your broker strives to protect you from the complex attacks, it’s important that you play your part by limiting what you share out with others and your activity online.